


Little Beast

by wildzubat



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 18:45:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18288092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildzubat/pseuds/wildzubat
Summary: How a young boy chose his name.(one possible version of Therion’s origin)





	Little Beast

This is the story of a boy who forgot his name.

When he was born, his parents named him, as parents are wont to do, but his mother called him her little apple when she was feeling kind, and his father suspected that this was not truly his son and so called him ‘little beast’ lest he grow attached and forget his wife’s infidelity.

The local lord - his true father - too, eschewed his name in favor of ‘boy’ lest he grow attached and be forever reminded of his indiscretions in the grieving wake of his wife’s passing. But he could not forget, and he retained a spot in turns both hard and soft for the son of her chambermaid who so strongly resembled his own true born son, whose birth had marked her death.

The other servants called him a little shadow for how quiet he could be, how nimble in sneaking into corners and cupboards he wasn’t meant to be in, finding secrets he wasn’t supposed to know. Only his elder half-brother called him by his given name, when they’d play together in the estate gardens, hiding their fun from the disapproval of their elders in twisted trees and behind thorny bushes.

When the rumors grew too much and his father’s temper grew too much and everything was too much, the boy’s mother took him and left, and in their new city - bigger and with more impressive bridges and a cathedral looming over all - no one knew his name save her. She called him her rotten apple, now, her little beast who ruined everything. To everyone else, he was a bastard and a whoreson when he was anything at all.

When she died from pestilence, he let his name die with her, forgotten and burned away in the pauper’s pyre. He had no name, then, until he picked one for himself.

Of all the name he’d been given, he thought perhaps beast suited him best, for he found himself surviving not unlike the clever masked creatures that used to steal from the gardens, eyes gleaming in the moonlight as they ran, tails waving behind much like his scarf. He remembered how every spring and fall, the groundskeeper had set traps for them, but the wily creatures so often would steal the bait and escape unscathed, to his secret delight and the groundskeeper’s eternal consternation.

He remembered, also, lessons meant for his brother, stolen from hiding places under tables and behind curtains. In one such lesson, the tutor had taught the names of the creatures of the world in the scholars’ tongues, and the boy had never forgotten the word for beast:

_Therion_

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt at synthesizing various things and rendering some of my headcanons for Therion a little more artistically, aha
> 
> My first time through Olberic’s chapter 4, I thought Harald and Therion looked remarkably alike, with white fluffy hair, slight stature, and bright eyes. Furthermore, Harald, it turns out, is only a year older than Therion. There are very few other NPCs around Orsterra with naturally white hair (discounting old folks), so that got me thinking...
> 
> Furthermore, Therion lacks a surname, and on top of that, ‘Therion’ itself is a sort of unusual name to give a child, as it means ‘beast’, but is the sort of edgy name an angry, sad child might give himself.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
